


until our marrows mix

by nikkiRA



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Choking, Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane, Immortality, Knifeplay, M/M, Murder Kink, Switch Akira Kurusu, Switch Goro Akechi, Torture, Violent Sex, references to past suicide attempts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:55:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26313781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikkiRA/pseuds/nikkiRA
Summary: It becomes a game between them, after that. They can go quite a while without sleeping, now, can hold off on meals for longer than they used to. Getting farther and farther away from their humanity, each year turning more and more into a pair of twisted gods in a world that isn’t real.The only time he feels alive anymore is with a knife to his throat.// Akira and Goro are immortal, now. they don't handle it super well.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 18
Kudos: 133





	until our marrows mix

**Author's Note:**

> _I want you stuffed into my mouth  
>  Hold you down and tear you open, live inside you, love  
> I'd never hurt you  
> But I'll grind against your bones until our marrows mix  
> I will eat you slowly_  
> -ludo, the horror of our love
> 
> additional warnings: in this story akira and akechi achieve immortality in maruki's reality and, over the years, out of grief and loneliness and all that jazz, end up having incredibly violent sex where they murder each other, since they'll just come back to life. it's immortal hate fucking. it's astra's fault.

The knife slides smoothly in between his ribs, and he gasps as he is pinned to the wall by a hand on his back. Pain radiates through his body, spreading through to his limbs, making his head fuzzy, his vision blurry, as a body presses up against his back. He groans in pain as the body pushes the knife in even more. 

"I can't decide if it's ignorance or arrogance that made you think you could get away with coming here," a voice says in his ear. Joker rests his head against the wall, panting heavily. 

"Were you just waiting for me? Kind of takes the fun out of the chase, doesn't it?" 

The knife pushes in even deeper, and Joker's knees buckle, head swimming. A strong arm wraps around him, holding him up. 

"I wasn't waiting," Crow says. "I knew you'd be here."

"But you didn't know  _ when,"  _ Joker says, because he likes being a smartass and just because there's a knife in his torso doesn't mean he's going to stop. "Which means you were waiting."

Crow twists the knife, and Joker  _ screams.  _

"Now is when you're supposed to beg for mercy," he says, lips at Joker’s ear. He chokes out a laugh. 

"Wouldn't you like that," he says, voice as calm and controlled as he can possibly get it while on the verge of death. Crow growls, and a hand makes its way into Joker’s hair as Crow yanks his head back. His body jerks, and the knife shifts inside him, and Joker sobs as wave after wave of pain crashes over him. The edges of his vision are going dark, and his knees buckle even more. 

Crow releases his hair and  _ tsk _ s at him. "None of that," he says, hauling Joker back up straight. "Can't have you passing out before the real fun begins." He manhandles Joker, pulling him away from the wall and hooking his foot around one of Joker’s, keeping his bottom half still as he pushes hard on Joker’s back, so he ends up with his face smushed against the wall, his chest nearly parallel to the floor. He can almost  _ hear  _ Crow smirking as his face slides painfully over the brick exterior of the house before he can summon up the power to put out his arms, nearly biting through his tongue in pain as he pushes himself up. Crow grabs the waistband of Joker’s pants, but instead of pulling them off he pauses. 

Joker tenses, but he could never have prepared himself for the pain as Crow pulls the knife out of him. He sobs again as blood soaks his clothes, legs shaking as Crow uses the knife to slice through his pants and underwear. He’s not exactly careful with the knife, and Joker feels it bite into the skin of his thighs and ass. Crow spreads his ass cheeks and spits on his hole, and Joker moans, lightheaded and fading. 

“Guess I’ll have to be quick, hm?” Crow says, shoving two fingers roughly inside of Joker, who barely even notices on top of everything else. 

“How is that any different from usual?” He says hoarsely, voice slurring. Crow slaps him  _ hard  _ on the ass, and the way it makes his body jerk makes him scream, head swimming, and his legs give out on him, arms dropping away from the wall as he falls. 

“You really don’t know when to stop talking, do you?” Crow says, letting Joker fall. “Perhaps I’ll slit your throat, next time.”

Joker doesn’t answer, eyes closed, sinking into unconsciousness. Crow shoves his legs apart roughly, but it feels like he is very far away from the entire situation, like it is happening to someone else’s body. 

Crow enters him in one push, shoving his cock deep inside of Joker, breath hitching appreciatively as Joker jerks against him, a sound coming from his throat that is a mix between a sob and a scream and a moan. Crow pulls back until only the head of his cock is still in Joker’s ass, spreading his cheeks again as he fucks back in. Joker moans brokenly. 

“Unbelievable,” Crow says, nails digging into the skin of Joker’s ass until he feels it break, another wound to add to the list. Crow is fucking hard into his broken, useless body, and Joker can’t separate the pleasure from the pain. “On the verge of death, and you still moan like a little whore when I fuck you. Do you have any shame?”

“You’re the one fucking a dead man,” he says weakly. 

_ “Still talking,”  _ Crow hisses. He picks the knife up off the ground and stabs it into Joker’s thigh; Joker doesn’t scream, just grunts, too worn out to do anything else, and Crow, clearly dissatisfied by this, grabs the handle tightly and twists. 

Joker screams, this time, hands curling weakly into fists. Crow pounds into him fast and without much of a rhythm, using him like a cocksleeve, utterly uninterested in anything but his own pleasure. He leans forward to grab Joker’s face, nails digging into Joker’s cheeks. “Say it,” he says, breathless, voice tight. Joker moans again -- Crow swipes a thumb over the tears streaking down Joker’s cheeks and then brings it to his mouth. 

“Say it,” he says again, and Joker does, over and over until Crow groans and spills inside of him,  _ yield yield yield please please please.  _

Crow pulls out, and Joker has the thought that it could be either cum or blood seeping out of his hole, and then, finally, he dies. 

* * *

They were human once. A very long time ago. Joker used to count the years, but eventually they started to blur together, and now he doesn’t know. He could be 200 or 2000. After a certain number of years, it stops mattering. 

They had names once, too. Human names. He had tried to keep that, too, to remember who he was when he was human, but just like his age, his name gets lost to time, and the only one he knows is Joker. It gets to the point that even if he remembered what his name used to be, he wouldn’t care. Joker is who he is. It is who he’s always been. 

Crow is never interested in discussions of who they used to be. Secretly Joker thinks that Crow remembers everything about their past, but he never asks. He is afraid both that Crow will tell him and that Crow won’t. It’s easier to just not ask. He’s happy like this, anyway. He doesn’t need the ghosts of his past coming back to haunt him. Doesn’t want to remember the people he knows he misses, the fractures in his soul. If he can’t remember their names or their faces or the sound of their laugh, then he can’t really miss them. 

So he doesn’t ask. 

* * *

Crow knows. Crow remembers. Remembers when he was Akechi Goro, remembers the very first day he saw Kurusu Akira across a dusty television station and felt his entire world shift. He remembers Joker’s friends, says their names to himself so they are not forgotten, but he doesn’t burden Joker with their memory. Crow can honour them for them both, can keep their memory alive without feeling his heart break for them. The reminder would only break Joker, so Crow keeps them safe in his chest, says their names over and over each night to ensure they never become lost to time. 

Crow remembers. Remembers the world where he felt powerful, remembers Joker’s smile across a chess board, remembers dying in his father’s twisted heart. He remembers Joker staring into the face of a doctor Crow had made himself forget (just the thought of him makes him angry) as he signed their lives and their freedoms away. He remembers how he had said, so confidently,  _ but you have to promise me that I won’t lose him again.  _

Crow had shouted, had grabbed him and shook him and  _ begged,  _ but Akira hadn’t budged. He’d cupped Crow’s cheeks between his hands and said  _ what’s the point of the world without you.  _ Crow had expected to hate him for it, and he did, for a time. But weeks and months and years passed, and he missed Akira like a lung, like a kidney, like his fucking  _ heart,  _ and he went back, crawled into Akira’s bed and tried to convince himself that a false reality with Akira beside him was better than wasting away beneath the dirt and becoming worm food. 

He’s still not sure if he believes it, or if he just put up with it until there was no longer any other choice. 

And look, he’s not going to relive it. He’s not going to sit here and remember the time he’d gotten so fucked up and desperate that he’d shot himself in the head, point blank in the forehead just like he’d done to Akira, and then  _ woke up  _ after. Won’t give thought to Maruki’s (fuck, now he’d remembered his name) stupid face, telling them with that nauseatingly genuine voice of his that he wasn’t the one doing this. Crow still doesn’t believe that. He won’t think about Akira watching his friends get older and older and then die, leaving him behind, still looking like a seventeen year old. About how he laid in bed, unmoving, refusing to eat, and what the fuck was Akechi supposed to do? Take him to the hospital, with a name and an ID of a geriatric man and the face of a teenager? There was nothing he could do. There was nothing he could do. He just watched Akira starve to death, over and over again. 

Is it any wonder that they ended up here? The perfect world moved on around them, no sickness, no sadness, no useless deaths. No more need for a rebel with a bleeding heart. 

What good is a Phantom Thief with no hearts to steal? What good is a leader if there's no one to follow him? 

* * *

It started because Crow pulled a knife on him and Joker got an erection. It started because they were so old and tired and angry, sick to death of each other but unable to exist without the other. Maruki’s perfect reality went on around them and they retreated away from society and one day Joker pushed him against the wall and fucked him dry, and he’d slipped a knife out of his sleeve and shoved it into Joker’s chest, and Joker  _ came.  _

The only time he feels alive anymore is with a knife to his throat. 

It becomes a game between them, after that. They can go quite a while without sleeping, now, can hold off on meals for longer than they used to. Getting farther and farther away from their humanity, each year turning more and more into a pair of twisted gods in a world that isn’t real. 

(Maruki is still alive, too. Joker goes to see him sometimes. Crow, needless to say, does not.)

It ramps up over time; it starts with Crow riding Joker while holding a knife to his throat, or Joker fucking him from behind with a loaded gun against his head. And then it moves to Crow pinning Joker down and carving up his chest, or the time Joker stabs a knife through each of Crow’s hands and feet and into the floor, keeping him still as Joker fucks his face, keeping his cock shoved down Crow’s throat until he passes out from lack of air. Eventually it becomes Joker deepthroating a pistol; when he comes, Crow pulls the trigger. Eventually it isn’t just enough to fuck like that, and it becomes a game, a chase, of who can find who first, of who can get the upper hand, of who can  _ win.  _ It’s every game of chess, of billiards, of darts, every fight and duel taken to the utmost extreme; when Joker finds him the first time he carves his name into Crow’s stomach, and he comes harder than he ever has before. 

On the bed beside him, colour is starting to come back into Joker’s face. Crow had changed his clothes and washed the blood from his skin, waited with bated breath until his skin started to stitch back together. It’s the only time he ever feels anxiety anymore, ever feels the hint of panic, is the moments before Joker’s body begins to heal. The fear that maybe this time was the last. That this time, Joker wouldn’t wake up, and he would be alone. 

But not this time. Colour floods his cheeks, and he shifts on the bed beside Crow before he opens his eyes. Joker smiles softly up at him, and it still makes something warm bloom to life in the graveyard of Crow’s heart. 

“Hi,” Joker says. 

“You’re slacking, Joker,” Crow says, as Joker cracks his knuckles. “I’ve taken quite a lead. I’m beginning to think you like losing.”

“I don’t like losing,” Joker says, turning onto his side and slinging an arm across Crow’s waist. “Maybe I just like letting you win.”

“That’s called losing.”

“Not if I  _ choose  _ to do it.”

“Whether you do it on purpose or not, it’s still losing.”

Joker grins and leans forward to kiss him. This is the only time when they feel normal. Human. Carved apart by each other's hand and put back together again. Remade in the image of who they used to be. Crow pulls him close, body curling around him. They fit together perfectly; they didn’t at first, not quite, Crow’s sharp edges puncturing through Joker’s skin every time he hugged him, Joker giving away too much of himself to every friend he met. But they’ve been remade so many times over the years, carved away and built back up, each version a little different from the people they once were, and now they fit together into something that could, under the right light, resemble a single, complete person. 

Joker’s tongue slips into his mouth, hand sliding around to grope Crow’s ass. Crow opens to him, rolling over onto his back and pulling Joker with him, a thigh pushing between Crow’s legs and rubbing against his hardening cock. At times like this, he can almost pretend that they’re okay. He can almost pretend that they’re happy. 

(One time Joker had wrapped his arms around him, pushed their heads together temple to temple. He had whispered  _ I love you  _ and then Crow had pulled the trigger, one bullet, two brains. Maybe if they died at once it would stick. 

He woke up a few hours later; he didn't mention the tear tracks on Joker's face, and Joker didn't mention the ones on his.)

“How did you know I’d come home?” Joker whispers, biting down on Crow’s jaw. 

“You have no patience,” Crow says. “You get desperate and horny and lazy.”

“Ouch,” Joker says. “Maybe I just miss you.”

“Give me a break.”

“Ouch,” Joker says again. 

He’s still him, beneath everything. It’s why he’s so unhappy. Crow has tried to rebuild himself into a different person, someone who can be happy like this, who can exist in this world without wanting to slice his wrists in the bathtub again (he was feeling extra dramatic, that time, and wanted to be like his mother). But it didn’t matter how many years passed, or how many friends he’d forgotten -- Crow looks into Joker’s face and still only sees Akira Kurusu. 

It makes it so much harder to hate him. 

Joker’s hand slips beneath Crow’s waistband, and Crow lifts his hips to make it easier to slide off his pants. Joker kisses down to his shoulder, biting hard and breaking skin before he continues down his chest, nails digging into Crow’s skin to mark the path he kisses down. When he gets to Crow’s navel he looks up at him, eyes dark and gaze wanting, and then shoves his fingers in Crow’s mouth. Crow knows that this is the only preparation he is going to get -- neither of them were much interested in sex without pain, anymore -- and tries not to drool  _ too  _ much. Joker barely lets him suck on his fingers before he pulls them out, and Crow feels gratitude in his chest for how well they know each other. 

Joker’s fingers enter him with little preamble, and Crow moans as Joker fingers him roughly; he tangles his hand in Joker’s mop of hair and pulls him back up to kiss him again, biting down hard on his lip. 

Joker's fingers are still curled inside him, barely helped at all by Crow’s spit. He arches his back and begs: Joker was impatient in the lead up, but Crow got hasty during the act itself, never understanding why they were spending time doing anything except  _ fucking  _ each other until they remembered how to feel again. 

“Joker, please,” he says, rolling his hips down on Joker’s fingers. Joker arches an eyebrow at him. 

“Who were you calling desperate and horny?” He says, and Crow just moans again, because he’s right. Joker licks his own hand and then rubs it over his cock -- he was always more generous than Crow was -- and then pushes inside of him, finally, and even when Crow groans like he’s being split in two Joker doesn’t stop. Crow only ever feels whole when they’re like this, joined together, Joker’s cock filling him perfectly. They are bound to each other in every way. 

He never used to be this pathetic. 

“Joker,” he says again, pleading as Joker fucks him brutally. His ass feels like it’s being split and the pull of Joker’s mostly dry cock on his rim burns but it’s not enough. “Joker, Joker,” he says, like it’s the only word he knows. 

Joker knows what he’s asking for. His hands come up and lock around Crow’s neck, squeezing as he fucks him, grip tightening with each thrust of his hips. Crow keeps his eyes open so he knows the exact moment his vision starts going blurry, and still Joker’s grip continues to tighten. 

“I love you,” Joker says, pupils blown wide as he strangles the life out of Crow. “I love you.”

_ I hate you,  _ he thinks.  _ I hate you, I hate you, please never leave me.  _

He doesn’t last through to Joker’s orgasm; Joker’s cock slams into him and his thumbs press into Crow’s neck and he comes like that, lungs screaming out for air and eyes bulging and cock pulsing hard, shooting across his stomach, and all he can think, over and over before he loses consciousness, is  _ Akira, Akira, Akira.  _

**Author's Note:**

> twitter @felixfraldaddy  
> Edit bc if you enjoyed this you're also free to follow my real nsfw twitter @felixfuckdarius


End file.
